Good Food Business Accelerator’s Third Year Off to Strong Start

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Nine competitively selected Fellows are participating in the third year of FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator, and they represent a wide range of exciting entrepreneurial ventures: from unique pies and clean meals to tea-infused energy bites and indigenous wild rice cereal, and from locally sourced juices and sparkling fruit tonics to pickled produce and sippable soups.

These businesses are on the cutting edge of Good Food and will grow with help from the Accelerator. The six-month program, which began in early November, includes an intensive business development curriculum, mentorship by industry leaders, and connections to a network of Good Food investors and financiers.

FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Business Accelerator launched its third cohort of entrepreneurial Fellows in early November. The members, from left to right: (Front Row) Jordan Buckner of Skyline Kitchen Inc.; Michele Gazzolo and Beth Denton of Fruitbelt LLC; Alison Velazquez of Skinny Souping; Maya-Camille Broussard of Justice of the Pies; Mitch Wasserman of Full Belly Foods. (Back Row) Megan Klein of MadeHere; Daniel Sikorski of The Eating Well; Issac Lozano of Skyline Kitchen Inc.; Colin Tomkins-Bergh of Simply Native; and Art Jackson of Pleasant House Bakery. Photo by 1871:Gregory Rothstein.

These businesses, all in Illinois unless noted, are (in alphabetical order):

Justice of the Pies (Chicago): a bakery that specializes in sweet and savory pies, quiches and tarts, and as the company scales up, it plans to focus its mission on hiring individuals who may have difficulty obtaining employment.

MadeHere (Bedford Park): makes salad dressings and other value-added products using produce from the FarmedHere indoor farm at the same location.

Pleasant House Pies and Breads (Chicago): offers a British-inspired, locally sourced menu, with savory meat and vegetarian Royal Pies as the centerpiece.

Skyline Kitchen Inc. (Chicago): produces TeaSquares, a tea-infused energy snack made with small-batch organic tea, pepitas and puffed millet, along with other energy-rich ingredients; its mission is to fuel economic development in urban centers.

The Eating Well (Chicago): makes Paleo, vegan and gluten-free meals and snacks, including four varieties of gluten-free, vegan vegetable burgers.

For more information on these businesses and profiles of the Fellows, click here.

Family Farmed President Jim Slama welcomed the new Fellows in the Good Food Business Accelerator Nov. 7 during an orientation held at the 1871 business incubator.

“The third cohort of the Good Food Business Accelerator will build upon the successes of the first two,” said FamilyFarmed founder and president Jim Slama, who noted that $25 million in deals have been stimulated by the Accelerator and the organization’s annual Good Food Financing and Innovation Conference over the past four years.

“At the same time, we are constantly improving the program’s offerings. And we are always on the lookout for Fellows who want to give back to their communities while they are building their businesses and meeting the growing consumer demand for Good Food,” Slama added. Half of the businesses in the third cohort are woman-owned and/or minority-owned and a third have defined social missions.

The Accelerator is based at 1871, Chicago’s center for business incubation and innovation, and extends the long-running efforts by FamilyFarmed — a Chicago-based nonprofit — to expand both supply of and demand for Good Food. The Fellows’ businesses are located in and service the Chicago foodshed and follow Good Food principles, defined by FamilyFarmed as food produced as locally as possible using sustainable, humane and fair practices.

The Good Food Business Accelerator is part of FamilyFarmed’s efforts over two decades to expand this fast-growing sector, which also include its annual Good Food Festival & Conference and Good Food Financing & Innovation Conference, held each March at Chicago’s UIC Forum. For more information, click here.

FamilyFarmed plans to broaden the scope of the Accelerator program with an Incubator Without Walls (IWOW). This project will provide shorter-term technical assistance to businesses that have more narrowly defined issues or which cannot devote the time to the six-month Good Food Business Accelerator.

For more information about the Good Food Business Accelerator, or to arrange for an interview about it with President Jim Slama, please contact Rebecca Frabizio at 312-874-7361 or email rebecca@familyfarmed.org.

GOOD FOOD BUSINESS ACCELERATOR FACT SHEET

The immediate impacts of the Good Food Business Accelerator are evident in the first and second year’s program metrics reported by FamilyFarmed.

Since the second Accelerator cohort graduated in April, the businesses reported a 239 percent market increase, and all of Fellows say they directly applied what they learned to their business practices.

At the point of graduation, 89 percent of second cohort Fellows said they were already better prepared to launch or expand, and to increase their sales. More than half said they were better prepared to create new jobs. And all of the cohort Fellows reported they were better prepared to speak with investors about their offerings.

One Fellow reported, “As I went through the GFBA, I was able to utilize the relationships and classes almost in parallel to what was happening in my business. When we talked about brokers, I was able to build a relationship with one. As we talked about co-packers, I was able to find one and partner with one. Being in the Accelerator really did accelerate many of the things that I needed to get done for the CPG [consumer packaged goods] part of my business.”

Businesses that participated in the Accelerator’s first year averaged a 62 percent increase in sales, a 107 percent increase in the number of customers and a 68 percent increase in the number of employees.

All of the GFBA Fellows report that exposure to the program’s network of mentors, advisors, educators and investors benefits their businesses significantly. Members of the 180+ network of mentors, advisors and investors report that working with the entrepreneurs in our program provides a front-row seat to young, innovative and fresh perspectives.

The Nov. 7 Good Food Business Accelerator orientation ended with a welcome dinner at The Kitchen, the Chicago outlet of a restaurant group whose social mission includes sponsorship of hundreds of school gardens.

Previous Alumni Businesses Include:

Cohort 1 (2014-15; all located in Illinois)

dailyServing (Chicago): produces a variety of functional food combos for people on the go.

Ten Delicious Facts About Chicago Good Food

Family Farmed is proud of the blossoming Good Food movement in our hometown of Chicago, so we put together a list of 10 Delicious Facts about Good Food in the Windy City (click on the photo to read the article). We want our readers to know what's happening in your hometown, too! If you would like to contribute a column about your Good Food scene, please contact bob@familyfarmed.org

Good Food n. /güd/ /füd/

1. Delicious, healthy food, accessible to all, produced as close to home as possible by family farmers and producers who use sustainable, humane, and fair practices. 2. A fast-growing movement creating vast numbers of jobs and economic development by providing people with food that matches their values.